All Will Be Revealed
by writerfan2013
Summary: Sherlock wants Joan's help with a case, but keeps disappearing. Friendship and mystery, hints of their possible romance.
1. Chapter 1

The doorbell rang. Joan set aside the map pinpointing drug raids across the city, and went to answer. Sherlock had been barricaded in the back room with a mystery visitor all morning, and there was no chance of him getting the door.

A cab driver stood on the doorstep. "Car for Mr Kay."

"Right."

Joan went through to the back room. She had been hearing animated discussion from behind the locked door all morning: Holmes' dry, steady proclamations, and his visitor's higher pitched, urgent sentences. The words were muffled, but Joan knew it must be about the influx of drugs into the city which had led to a surge in overdoses and drug related violence.

Joan knocked. No reply. She opened the door.

No sign of Sherlock. His guest was hunched at the table nursing a small flat bottle of whisky.

"Cab for Mr Kay," said Joan uncertainly.

Kay stood, wobbling a little, and pocketed the drink with filthy, trembling hands. He had a terrible burn or birth mark across his face; his left eye was almost closed and his mouth was drawn downwards on that side by the red puckered flesh. He stumbled past her without a word, but his stench was enough to make her recoil and press her hand over her mouth.

"Where's Sherlock?" she called after him.

"He went out," in a thick Bronx accent, was all the reply she got.

Great. Joan opened the window to let the stale air out. She heard the cab roar away, then saw a scrap of paper on the table where Kay had been sitting.

It was in Holmes' tight, rapid scrawl. "Haitian link to drugs. Possible use of homeless as me outside the Unified Mission by Riverside Park to investigate. S."

Joan sighed.

On the subway she picked up an abandoned newspaper. The headline was typically sensational: Mutant Killer Stalks City's Darkest Places.

Joan rolled her eyes. The piece was about a mysterious deformed man, believed to be a Vietnam veteran, now living in the disused tunnels under New York. The man had supposedly been suffering some kind of mental trauma which had led him to begin killing his fellow subterranean dwellers.

Joan set aside the paper as the subway rolled in. New York was full of such myths, the more extreme, the better.

The Mission occupied a drab concrete building opposite the park. A few bleak fluorescent lights were on inside, showing a bare office room and a functional canteen where people sat drinking coffe or eating soup.

Joan shivered outside until a young woman with no make-up, in a minister's garb came down the steps to greet her. "You must be Joan Watson," she said. "I'm Clare Webb."

"I'm supposed to meet Sherlock here," Joan said, looking around.

Clare looked thrilled. "That would be amazing. We've spoken on the phone, but never met. I work with the homeless community here, and Sherlock consults me about what's happening with the dispossessed."

"Right. Has he been talking to you about drug running being carried out by homeless people?" Joan asked.

"No," said Clare, "but one of my regulars said something about the people going missing in the tunnels, so I gave Sherlock a call." She glanced around. "Oh, there he is. Let me go have a word. If you don't mind, best you stay over here, these people don't always connect so well with strangers."

Joan looked across the street and recognised Kay, the man who had been at the brownstone earlier.

Clare spoke to him. He pointed across the park. Clare seemed troubled, and after more chat to Kay, gestured to Joan to join them. But as she crossed the street, Kay shuffled off into the park, disappearing behind the trees.

Clare sighed."That's Kay," she said. "He drops in from time to time, usually when something bad has happened. He's been around a lot more lately since these tunnel killings."

"Are those real?" Joan asked. "I mean, is there actually a deformed crazy person killing off homeless people in the subway system?"

Clare grimaced. "Well, it's hard to verify. People are scared, that's for sure."

"What did Kay say to you just now?"

"He said the killer is stalking the old Amtrak tunnel under Riverside." Clare took a breath. "And that anyone who wants to live, had better stay away."


	2. Chapter 2

As Joan hesitated, unsure what to do given Sherlock's no-show, he appeared, hurrying from the street beyond the Mission.

"Ah, Watson, glad you made it. Miss Webb, I presume?" He shook hands with the minister. "Any new titbits for me today?"

"Well yes. Another murder, according to Kay."

"I spoke to him this morning and he said the same thing." Sherlock seemed on edge, glancing around nervously. "Miss Webb, I need to consult with my colleague for a spell. May we come back later to talk with you?"

It was Sherlock at his most charming. Clare Webb smiled and retreated into the Mission.

Sherlock then switched off his own smile and turned to Joan, rubbing his hands. "Right, Watson. To work. Intelligence received this morning shows that the new flood of cocaine is coming in from Haiti. I have already alerted Gregson to try to stem the tide. Meanwhile, you and I need to follow up my other lead, which is the suspected use of homeless people as runners. This way!"

Raising his hand, he strode off across the park, Joan hurrying behind him.

Sherlock led them to the far edge of the park where regeneration was still underway. Through scrubby bushes, past builder's rubble and finally to a small metal hut like an electricity substation.

"Where are we going?" Joan wanted to know.

Sherlock produced a small metal tool from a pocket and attacked the door of the hut. "We are going somewhere that no one is supposed to go. We are going to the one time home of the semi mythical Mole People."

He wrenched open the door. "Follow me - and mind your step, it's slippery, and most of the stairs are missing."

Joan followed him into the darkness. They descended metal stairs and arrived in a long hall with a curved roof. Shafts of daylight dropped onto the concrete at intervals in either direction.

"Mind the gap," advised Sherlock with a grin. From another pocket he produced a torch and shone it at Joan's feet.

She stepped back as she saw a drop onto a lowerevel. "Wait - this is a subway."

"Siding, actually. Yes, this is part of the Amtrak tunnels, where until the early Nineties, hundreds or possibly thousands of people made their homes. The Mole People as they were dubbed by the more sensational of writers." He took her hand to guide her across the rough ground, strewn with debris.

"Then Amtrak, not unreasonably, wanted their tunnel back. The underground population was evicted. But recently, very recently, they have started creeping back."

He pressed a finger to her lips as they approached a roll of rags against one curved wall. Joan remained silent, but was also puzzled. She had caught a whiff of something unpleasant, but familiar. What was it?

"Vasquez. Vasquez, wake up."

The rag roll moved and sat up - a middle aged guy with wild hair and bloodshot eyes. "Who are you?"

"A friend of Kay's. I want to ask you two things."

Vasquez moaned and mumbled something, rubbing his eyes.

"First," said Sherlock, "have you had a bag stolen lately?"

"Yeah, how d'you know that?"

"What kind of bag, who took it from you?"

"Funny thing, it was a new bag, this guy gave it to me at the Mission, better than my old one. It had all my stuff in. Now look at me." He gestured around at the sad crumple of sleeping bag, though Joan could not imagine that anything in the stolen bag would have made it palatial. "Then two nights ago, this same dude turns up down here, cup of hot soup, talk about God, the usual. I drink the soup, nod at the preaching, then when he's gone I realise my bag is too."

"It's not homeless people being used as runners," Sherlock said to Watson. "They're being used to hide the drugs until they can be fed to the street. And it's being done in the name of the Mission, which gives us another lead."

He turned back to Vasquez. "Second thing. Kay's friend, Inkonu, is dead."

Vasquez jerked back. "Where?"

"Here. Kay says get out, and I agree with him. The Freedom tunnel is too dangerous, my friend. Leave while you can." Sherlock patted Vasquez on the shoulder, and Joan saw him slip money into the man's pocket. "Thank you for your trouble. And about Inkonu - tell everyone."

They made their way - not back, but onwards. Joan saw several other people, or their small collections of possessions, as they passed by. The whole place was cold, damp, and appeared on the point of collapse.

At each person Sherlock stopped, mentioned Kay, and asked about the bags.

At last they reached a concrete ramp, leading up to an exit barred with steel girders.

Joan was grateful for the daylight, but could not see hot they could get out. Just beyond the barrier, she could see trees, and hear children playing. Yet here they were, trapped in this underground nightmare.

"Don't look so so worried, Watson," said Sherlock, snapping off the torch. "It's merely an illusion." To prove his point, he stepped up to the criss crossed girders, and ligjtlyifted one aside. "Cardboard," he said. "Painted grey. You just need to know which ones."

Outside in the fresh air, Joan trailed Sherlock back towards the Mission. But instead of going inside, he stopped, pulled out his phone, and dialled. "Captain Gregson, good afternoon. Yes, the drugs. I think if you go to the Unified Mission by Riverside, and look for a young white man with a very recent vocation, you'll find a key person in the Haitian drugs distribution network."

He listened to Gregson for a minute, then rang off. "Coffee, I think, Watson. But not at the Mission. Perhaps one of those fine establishments where the price of a latte could provide a bed for the night for someone on the streets."

Watson set two coffees down at the counter overlooking the park, and perched on a stool beside Sherlock. She leaned in close as he smiled at her, and sniffed his neck.

"Ugh! It was you, wasn't it - you're Kay." She wafted the smell away.

"One of my alter egos, yes. The scent keeps people from looking too closely." He sipped coffee and gazed at the park. "I needed a way to talk to the homeless. They don't trust the law, or even the charitable foundations helping them. But they have a slight trust in other people in the same predicament." He glanced at Joan. "The bags - a clever idea. Give a man a new bag with drugs concealed inside, then steal it from him when the time comes. He's a homeless man, who's going to pursue the crime? To stop your drugs wandering off, you make your unwitting helpers as comfortable as possible where they are, with room service of soup and so on - in this case, the old Amtrak tunnel."

"You said it was back in use for trains again," Joan said. She rummaged in her bag and passed him a wipe. "You have a little scar make up on your ear. Here, let me."

Sherlock wriggled as she removed the last traces of the foul smelling Kay. "The Freedom Tunnel used to be a haven for graffiti artists and the alternative movement. But since the evictions, it's become far too dangerous for occupation by the homeless, for two reasons."

"This killer," said Joan.

Sherlock shook his head, and relieved her of the wipe. "First reason: it's an active train tunnel. There are electrified lines, wiring, and obviously, on the main track, trains. Second: since Hurricane Sandy, there's been a lot of flooding and damage, especially to the tunnels not yet recommissioned. Debris, rotting material, it's a horrible, and potentially lethal environment."

He dabbed at his neck with the wipe. "I needed a way to get people to leave the tunnels of their own accord. A psychotic killer preying on the sleeping homeless seemed just the job."

"A mutant killer?" Joan said, thinking of the headline.

"I can't help what the press make of my work. The main point is, it's having an effect. They're leaving."

"Please tell me you didn't wander the streets searching for dead homeless people, and then say the mutant man killed them."

"Of course not. I identified a few hopeless cases, and killed them myself."

Joan choked on her coffee and Sheock burst out laughing. "For pity's sake, Watson. I'm joking. I made them up. 'Kay' had a lot of friends, who were each found mysteriously dead. With each retelling on the street the details became, as I'd hoped, more lurid."

Joan shook her head in despair.

"I wondered if you'd recognise me at the brownstone," Sherlock said. "Or from the name-? Kay - it's Haitian for Homes."

She groaned. "Give me that wipe." She scrubbed at him some more. "What is this smell, anyway?"

"Ah, yes, one of my own creations. Don't drink the milk in the fridge - it's not milk."

She dropped the wipe delicately on her saucer. "Time to go home. For a shower, maybe?"

"Too busy, New cases coming in all the time." He caught her look. "But, yes, all right, home first. At least we have one, eh?"

She nodded soberly. He took her hand, and led her outside. "Cab or subway?"

"Cab please."

"Yes, Joan." He saluted her, and raised his arm to hail a cab.

The End


End file.
